William Turner - The Complete Works: “The Shipwreck” c. 1805

“Joseph Mallord William Turner (23 April 1775 – 19 December 1851) was an English Romantic landscape painter, watercolourist and printmaker, whose style can be said to have laid the foundation for Impressionism. Although Turner was considered a controversial figure in his day, he is now regarded as the artist who elevated landscape painting to an eminence rivalling history painting.” (more)

Strange tales of silent destruction and partial fragmentation in Grasso’s work. Here’s what Ed Schad (curator and independant writer working over at ArtSlant) had to say about it:

“Ben Grasso, like many contemporary painters, takes decay as his subject matter, but unlike those painters (often eager to watch the world burn), Grasso seems to follow the enthusiasm of his brushstrokes and the buoyancy of his color into realms laced with whimsy and imagination. His houses are in shreds and crumbling, you see a white flag of surrender, he dashes off a couple of shacks in the jungle, but Grasso doesn’t believe that these ruins denote the end of things — flickers of light shimmer and whirls of white burst into the air.” (read more)

Eric Baker over at the Design Observer comments on this collection of travel posters : “In the interests of full disclosure, let me confess that I have long been a sucker for the golden age of travel posters. To me, they evoke a time, almost a century ago, when travel was actually exciting and adventurous, before metal detectors and security lines — and before you had to take your shoes off before boarding a plane. The British novelist Somerset Maugham produced some of his greatest literature during this period, stories filled with exotic characters — the plantation owners and aristocrats, not to mention the secret agents and scoundrels — that he met on his numerous trips to China, India and the Middle East. Indeed, to travel at that time was to engage in an activity that was, by all indications, considerably more civilized than it is today.” (read more)

Photographer: David De Maus Ship Garthsnaid, ca 1920s, Glass copy negative, Reference No. 1/2-014494-G, De Maus Collection, Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand

Subject : On board the ship `Garthsnaid’ at sea, circa 1920s, showing unidentified sailors on the rigging. Location unknown. Original photographer unidentified. This copy negative, and inscription, by David Alexander De Maus.” (more)